MOTORCYCLE TRAVEL IN Australia

Riding the Great Ocean Road by motorcycle means crossing the largest war memorial on Earth: the 243km between Torquay and Allansford were carved out by pick and shovel, between 1919 and 1932, by Australian soldiers returning from World War I, as a tribute to their own fallen comrades.

The road hugs the Bass Strait coastline almost without a break, with corners that never repeat themselves twice, all the way to the Twelve Apostles: limestone stacks the sea has been carving for somewhere between 10 and 20 million years, and today there are really only eight left standing, since the surf keeps knocking one down every so often.

It's probably Australia's most photographed road — and also its most car-choked with tourists, so the reward of riding it on two wheels is getting every corner to yourself instead of stuck behind a campervan.

Riding the Gibb River Road by motorcycle means crossing the heart of the Kimberley on a road that was built for cattle, not tourists: the Australian government built it between 1949 and 1956 under the "Beef Roads Scheme," to move livestock from remote stations out to the port of Derby.

It's 660km of corrugated gravel, river crossings and red dust between Derby and Lake Argyle, with mandatory detours to gorges like Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek, where water has been carving through limestone for millions of years.

It shuts down completely during the monsoon (November to April): the real riding season lasts barely six months, and that's exactly what keeps it wild — no pavement to make it predictable.

Ask ten Australian motorcyclists their favorite road in the country and at least half will answer without hesitating: the Oxley Highway by motorcycle. It's about 170km between Wauchope and Walcha, with more than 300 corners counted one by one by the local riders themselves.

The road climbs from the Port Macquarie coast up to the New England tablelands over Mount Seaview, and it does it on near-perfect pavement with almost no heavy traffic — a rare thing in any country.

It's not an adventure or outback route: it's pure riding technique, with decreasing-radius corners that, as the regulars themselves admit, still catch out even someone riding it for the hundredth time.

Finishing the Old Telegraph Track by motorcycle means literally reaching the northernmost tip of mainland Australia: it's barely 150km from Bramwell Junction, but it's the country's most feared and most searched-for off-road stretch.

The original track dates back to the 1880s, when it was cut to maintain the telegraph line connecting Cairns to Thursday Island. Today that history is little more than trivia next to the crossings that made it go viral: Gunshot Creek, with near-vertical banks that show up in any YouTube search as bikes flying through the air; Palm Creek, with steep entries and exits; and the Dulhunty River, equal parts mud and deep water.

Finishing the whole OTT, without dodging a single crossing on the easier bypass tracks, is one of the few rider achievements that speaks for itself at any gathering of overlanders.

Crossing the Nullarbor by motorcycle means riding across the largest continuous limestone surface on Earth: 1,200km from Norseman to Ceduna over a plain that, according to recent geology, dried out completely somewhere between 2.4 and 2.7 million years ago.

The name comes from the Latin "nullus arbor" — no trees — and it's not an exaggeration: right in the middle sits the 90 Mile Straight, 146.6km without a single bend, the longest straight stretch of road in the country. Running alongside it is the Trans-Australian Railway, which holds the record for the longest straight stretch of track on the entire planet: 478km without deviating a single degree.

The current road, the Eyre Highway, wasn't fully sealed until 1976 — before that, crossing the Nullarbor in any vehicle was a genuine expedition, not a weekend trip.

Climbing the Great Alpine Road by motorcycle up to Mount Hotham means reaching the highest point of any sealed, year-round accessible road in all of Australia: 1,840 meters above sea level, on a 303.7km route between Wangaratta and Bairnsdale.

The road has existed in some form since colonial times, but it was only fully completed between 1997 and 1998, when the final 12km stretch between Dinner Plain and Horsehair Plain was sealed. The name "Great Alpine Road" is even newer: it was only given that name in 1996.

The Bright-to-Hotham section is pure mountain pavement with fast, sweeping curves; the descent toward Omeo, by contrast, turns tight and technical, demanding a lot more attention to your riding.

Riding the Great Eastern Drive by motorcycle means slowing down along Tasmania's east coast: about 220km between Triabunna and St Helens, passing through Freycinet National Park, the oldest in the entire state.

Inside the park sits Wineglass Bay, repeatedly ranked among the world's best beaches, framed by the Hazards, a chain of pink granite peaks visible from the road in several stretches.

Further north, the Bay of Fires got its name from the Aboriginal campfires navigator Tobias Furneaux spotted along the coast in 1773 — a curious coincidence, because today its granite boulders are covered in a bright orange lichen that, at a glance, looks just like fire.

The Birdsville Track by motorcycle follows, almost exactly, the trail drovers cut in the 1860s to move cattle from inland Queensland down to the nearest railhead, at Marree: it's 517km crossing three deserts back to back, the Strzelecki, the Sturt Stony and the Tirari.

It became legendary because of mailman Tom Kruse, who spent decades delivering the mail along this trail in brutal conditions, an achievement captured in the 1954 documentary "The Back of Beyond."

It's one of the driest regions on the entire continent, with under 100mm of rain a year — and in that emptiness, there's exactly one real point of support along the whole route.

The Oodnadatta Track by motorcycle retraces a path Aboriginal peoples in the area already used as a trading route, long before explorer John McDouall Stuart passed through in 1859: it's 614km between Marla and Marree, deep in the South Australian outback.

That original trail was later followed by the telegraph line and, after that, by the Central Australia Railway — today's legendary "Ghan" train — which was routed there specifically because of the artesian springs running beneath the desert from the Great Artesian Basin. You can still see ruins of the old telegraph repeater stations at places like Coward Springs.

The track's name was only made official around 1980, and today the essential landmark is the Pink Roadhouse in Oodnadatta, painted bubblegum pink in the middle of nowhere.

The Putty Road by motorcycle connects Windsor, on the outskirts of Sydney, with Singleton, in the Hunter Valley, along 168km of narrow, winding road that cuts through Wollemi National Park — the same place where the Wollemi Pine, a species thought extinct for millions of years, was discovered in 1994.

The road's own encyclopedia entry describes it as popular with tourists, motorcyclists and cyclists, and any Sydney rider knows exactly why: it's the closest weekend escape to the city with real corners.

The northern stretch, locally nicknamed "the 10 mile" for its tightest 16km, holds most of the closed-radius corners and is, without question, the part everyone comes for.